Los Angeles — The nods are in. This morning, the 62nd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards nominations showed once more that the ongoing slow-motion revolution all over the television landscape continues, with an evolving mix of broadcast network, basic, and premium cable shows – not to mention a satellite drama – in the blend.

“We are in the middle of a revolution,” says Robert Thompson, founder of the The Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. At the same time, he adds, “ we are also in the midst of high orthodoxy.” Such conventional TV dramas as “The Good Wife” persist, despite innovations such as “Lost” or even “24” – a critical and stylistically groundbreaking hit that ended this year and is surprisingly absent from the nomination list, he adds. “The Good Wife’ is such old-school TV,” he says, adding, “but just like ‘CSI,’ ‘Law and Order,’ and ‘Jag’, it shows that network television can still get good results.”

The red-haired comic’s abbreviated show ran on NBC, but the peacock network did not mount the highly visible campaign in support of its nomination. Rather, TBS, Mr. O’Brien’s new home this fall, pushed for his place on the list. “This just proves that NBC has wrecked its late-night schedule,” says Mr. Whitfield. “TBS must be pretty happy, and Conan must be giggling at home right now.”

Other welcome first-timers include comediennce Jane Lynch, nominated for her supporting role on “Glee,” and nearly the entire cast of “Modern Family,” with another notable exception – “Married with Children” veteran Ed O’Neill.

Continuing the handicapping, Fordham University’s Paul Levinson points to what he considers two of the top shows on this year’s Emmy list – “Friday Night Lights,” and “Dexter,” as evidence of the changing TV landscape. “Lights" is simply one of the best shows ever on TV, and yet it aired only on satellite, DIRECTV in the fall,“ he says, pointing out that the series didn’t land back on NBC until 2010.

"Dexter," he notes, airs on premium cable's Showtime. “This is just more of the move away from traditional broadcasters into new areas such as cable and other platforms including satellite and mobile phone,” says the author of “New New Media," adding “it won’t be too far off that we will see a series that never aired on either network or cable, that began and ended just on the web on this list.”

Despite the hype around award shows nominations, "this list is not what many outside the industry sometimes suppose,” says Mr. Thompson, who calls it “some sort of exalted, scientific selection of the objectivly best shows on TV.” Rather, the media maven says, “the Emmys are a snapshot of what a group of industry insiders think is good at any given time, so in the sense that it is interesting to see what people who make television think of their handiwork , then this awarrd show has its place.”